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Regency Rails - Georgian, Williamine & Early Victorian Railways


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1 hour ago, Argos said:

Hi RLWP, 

 

I was showing the smaller motors to highlight the range available. On most of the pages linked there are options for 8, 10 and 12mm motors that will offer more power.

 

That said I would expect any model train load for the period to be light anyway.

 

If the Hackworth gear gets a bit out of alignment, that Wren struggles to move itself. If things are OK it manages three small vee tippers on the flat

 

I think that equates to 1/4 of an SG wagon :D

 

I didn't spot the bigger motors, I'll have another browse

 

Richard

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The purpose of my little sketch was to demonstrate that the engines of 1830-ish on certainly are feasible in 4mm scale. Earlier designs might be too but as another poster pointed out, all that waggly piston rod and valve gear stuff to vertical cylinders is likely to be too delicate for regular operation.

 

Of course smaller, and pricier, motors are available, but there are two issues when it comes to small locos. One is that the smallest motors are generally not available for 12 volt operation. That either means risking them to operator error or putting some loading resistors in circuit. Which aren't small given they need to be at least 1/4W rating. Or using DCC of course, but that would require a chip which again needs squeezing in somewhere.

 

The second point, and with small, low-boilered locos it is quite significant, is the gearing. Worm gears are inefficient, "driving with the handbrake on" as an esteemed but unfortunately deceased modeller frequently said, but they also push the motor upwards. The precision gears available are better than the old Romfords, but they are also harder to mesh properly. Poor meshing leads to noise and also that phenomenon where a loco works much better in one direction than in the other. The attraction of the cheap motors available on eBay or Amazon is that they are fitted with a gearbox that reduces motor speed down to the point where spur gears or crown and pinion gears can be used. Motors like the Faulhabers also need that sort of gearbox and that adds to their size as well.

 

Worm gears also impose end loading on motor shafts, and I'm told that Faulhabers don't like that.

 

I confess to not being a precision modeller, but I do like tinkering away. And that is what some of us have been doing. Geoff Helliwell, who is a precision modeller, gets some really good results in terms of reliable and smooth operation this way. Though it's the crown and pinion gearing over worm drives that makes the difference.

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3 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

Worm gears also impose end loading on motor shafts, and I'm told that Faulhabers don't like that.

 

A Faulhaber driving through a worm gear in a Backwoods Miniatures Hunslet:

 

DSCF9282.JPG

 

Richard

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34 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Not a good reason to buy something as important as a motor, IMO.

 

Depends on the purpose doesn't it? For powering a kit that cost getting on for a couple of hundred once ancillaries such as wheels and castings are taken into account, then no. For experimenting I would suggest using cheap motors might be the better idea

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4 hours ago, whart57 said:

Worm gears also impose end loading on motor shafts, and I'm told that Faulhabers don't like that.

Technically, that’s true, but the best loco builder I know earned his crust as a design engineer for a medical instrument company, and many of his locos (all of which run superbly) are powered by a 46:1 worm and gear fitted to a 1717 coreless motor, held in place and in mesh with a very very simple cradle and strap arrangement. I have raised this point with him in the past, and he pointed out that like many things in the hobby, the theory doesn’t apply as we are using these motors for other than their intended purpose. (A point which you made whilst I was posting this!)

His other locos use various Mashimas (generally round and as long as possible) mostly via High Level gear frames, and they run just as well.

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Cross-postings.
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A lot must depend upon the amount of end-loading. The torque needed to overcome the loads that such minuscule model locos are asked to pull must itself be tiny, and it is the torque at the axle which translates backwards, through the gear and worm, into end-loading.

 

Its not as if it’s the direct drive onto a drill-bit or something.

 

it can cause trouble in worn old open-frame motors, though, because end-float in the shaft can cause fouling at the armature or brushes. Many an X04 has been revivified by sorting-out end-float problems.

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Very different modelling conceptually - but nevertheless effective and eye catching is this animated oil painting that used to hang in the foyer of the Rampsbeck Hotel on Ullswater before the hotel was extended and re-furbished.

Whenever the clock struck (on the quarters) the Rocket and its train crossed the suspension bridge, the mill's sails turned and the ships sailed !

I imagined it to be made in Nuremburg and imported around about the time of Victoria's accession in 1837. I apologise for the poor iPhone pic missing the locomotive and lacking a video function). I'd say it was about a metre wide overall. It always rather reminded me of Wetheral in 1839  on the N&C 

1802744671_ramsbeckgoodpic.jpg.4fca735d2f8c91e124d6e1e41a3fdfd7.jpg

 

Edited by runs as required
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9 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Didn’t RaR tell us that it blew the world to bits, rather than setting it on fire?

 

Disregarding the excellent model what strikes me as quite peculiar about the design itself is that it seems to completely misunderstand both the question and the potential of steam power. Now on the surface it is an attempt in mechanical form to duplicate the work of a horse or the work of a man pushing a wagon. Which is well and good and answers one question as to how to utilise steam power, but everyone else who was inspired by the harnessing of steam power saw the potential for completely replacing animal or human power in such a way that the result was something much more powerful*, much swifter, more economic and importantly realised the true potential of rails or other forms of properly constructed roads for transport use. So instead of offering a means to properly utilise the options becoming available it went off up a blind alley (so to speak :D ).  That's what I was getting at.

 

Looking at the way the model works I wonder if the real thing also functioned in that peculiar jerking motion of smooth movement interspersed with frequent jerks as would a horse or human stumbling or slowing to ease tiredness. The 19th century certainly was a period of creativity but this just doesn't properly address the problem. 

 

* another design that also falls into the category is the horse on a treadmill connected to wheels.   

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I understood, and was joking.

 

Presumably inertia helped smooth things out a bit with the real thing, but it was unquestionably a bad idea overall, and very odd because the principles of obtaining rotary motion from a reciprocating engine were very old news - I suppose it goes with the lack of faith in the powers of adhesion between a smooth rail and a smooth wheel that are evident in some other early designs.

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18 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I understood, and was joking.

 

Presumably inertia helped smooth things out a bit with the real thing, but it was unquestionably a bad idea overall, and very odd because the principles of obtaining rotary motion from a reciprocating engine were very old news - I suppose it goes with the lack of faith in the powers of adhesion between a smooth rail and a smooth wheel that are evident in some other early designs.

 

I suspected you were joking.

 

However the concept puts me in mind of the slightly confused person who is always one step behind the action. The sort of person who in the early 19th century if presented with a sailing ship and a steam engine and asked to consider how the former might be improved by the latter, would go to a great deal of trouble inventing a mechanism to furl and unfurl the sails without ever quite seeing that replacing the sails with paddle wheels or a screw powered by the engine would render the sails obsolete and the ship more efficient. :huh: 

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6 minutes ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

I suspected you were joking.

 

However the concept puts me in mind of the slightly confused person who is always one step behind the action. The sort of person who in the early 19th century if presented with a sailing ship and a steam engine and asked to consider how the former might be improved by the latter, would go to a great deal of trouble inventing a mechanism to furl and unfurl the sails without ever quite seeing that replacing the sails with paddle wheels or a screw powered by the engine would render the sails obsolete and the ship more efficient. :huh: 

 

I'm not sure it was that clear cut at the time. There was a lot of scepticism that a metal wheel on a metal rail could provide enough traction to move a train. Brunton's horse uses existing technology* to provide the contact with the ground

 

What I think is more obvious is the limitation of the design because it has to rely on the weight of the loco. The model lifts the rear wheels off the ground, the full size one would almost certainly do the same when the load got too great

 

Richard

 

*you know what I mean :D

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12 minutes ago, RLWP said:

 

 

What I think is more obvious is the limitation of the design because it has to rely on the weight of the loco. The model lifts the rear wheels off the ground, the full size one would almost certainly do the same when the load got too great

 

Richard

 

*you know what I mean :D

 

I noticed that occurring and wondered if it would have happened with the full scale machine.

 

In theory it's a design better suited for a tricycle design with the front single wheel running in an inverted channel girder. In fact, dare I suggest, ideally suited for the Hornby Dublo three rail centre pickup system, which would thus  make modelling this device a little simpler by powering the wheels and allowing the legs to be animated but not prone to slippage or lifting the wagon and emptying it like a wheel barrow. However I feel that might be taking what is essentially a steam punk concept a little too far :blink:   

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33 minutes ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

I suspected you were joking.

 

..... would go to a great deal of trouble inventing a mechanism to furl and unfurl the sails without ever quite seeing that replacing the sails with paddle wheels or a screw powered by the engine would render the sails obsolete and the ship more efficient. :huh: 

 

Weren't steam winches developed for precisely that purpose? It wasn't such a stupid idea because the tipping point when the cost of bunkering the coal needed for a long voyage no longer outweighed the loss of revenue because of the reduction in cargo space was not reached till late in the nineteenth century.

 

 

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1 minute ago, whart57 said:

 

Weren't steam winches developed for precisely that purpose? It wasn't such a stupid idea because the tipping point when the cost of bunkering the coal needed for a long voyage no longer outweighed the loss of revenue because of the reduction in cargo space was not reached till late in the nineteenth century.

 

 

 

They may have been, but well into the 20th century sailing ships carrying cargo were still plying the world's oceans using manpower to do the hard work. While in the 19th century until steam power and coaling facilities both improved, sail was still used as a reserve source of propulsion. However this was really after steam power was first applied to propulsion of ships. So the use of a steam engine to power a ship was quite early and if memory serves was about coincidental with the first applications of steam power to create the proto-locomotives. It was really just like the early days of the automobile when their use had to be carefully planned to consider the availability of petrol stations, although I don't believe that anyone seriously considered extending the chassis to carry a horse in reserve. ;) *

 

*They might have but I suspect that having a horse breathing down your neck while you're driving would have deterred even the most eccentric inventor. :stink: 

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But on land you could always hire a livery horse during that cusp period.  At sea you had to have the back up on board or risk a wreck if the engine either couldn't be fixed or you had run out of coal.

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1 hour ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

They may have been, but well into the 20th century sailing ships carrying cargo were still plying the world's oceans using manpower to do the hard work. While in the 19th century until steam power and coaling facilities both improved, sail was still used as a reserve source of propulsion. However this was really after steam power was first applied to propulsion of ships. So the use of a steam engine to power a ship was quite early and if memory serves was about coincidental with the first applications of steam power to create the proto-locomotives. It was really just like the early days of the automobile when their use had to be carefully planned to consider the availability of petrol stations, although I don't believe that anyone seriously considered extending the chassis to carry a horse in reserve.

 

The earliest examples of steam power on ships were indeed around the same time as the first steam locomotives. The fact that steam did not wholly supplant sail for another century or more (sailing barges were still plying the estuaries up to the second world war) is another example of economics being more important than technology. Steam power was simply not economic for most freight. The history of Cutty Sark shows that. Ships like that lost the trade in high value cargoes such as China tea decades before they lost to steam on lesser value cargoes such as wool where the cargo wouldn't spoil through delay and therefore the cost of coal was more significant

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2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

....and very odd because the principles of obtaining rotary motion from a reciprocating engine were very old news - 

 

 

Maybe, but Boulton and Watt held the patents for the simple crank, and were not above employing m'learned friends to stifle competition. 

Which makes the Bruton engine look more like a mistimed attempt to evade the B&W patents than anything else. 

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B&W were serious patent exploiters, but not, I think, in respect of cranks:

 

 

An important limitation of the original Newcomen engine was its inability to deliver a steady rotary motion. The most convenient solution, involving the combined use of the crank and a flywheel, relied on a method patented by James Pickard, which prevented Watt from using it. Watt also made various attempts at efficiently transforming reciprocating into rotary motion, reaching, apparently, the same solution as Pickard. But the existence of a patent forced him to contrive an alternative less-efficient mechanical device, the "sun and planet" gear. It was only in 1794, after the expiration of Pickard's patent that Boulton and Watt adopted the economically and technically superior crank.

 

 

 

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